Ephesians Chosen

Chosen

Question of the day: What is one thing you would like to say to your younger self?

Good morning and happy Sabbath! 

This morning we start a new book! It is a little book that has become very special to me in the last several weeks.  A book that has brought encouragement and new insight into who I am.  It is my prayer that over the next several weeks we allow the message in this book to permeate and become part of who we are.  Here in the Kitchen Class we have the tag line, "Feasting on His Word."  As I have studied this book, I keep thinking about how the message, just like food, goes into my being and becomes part of each and every cell.  May the Lord bless the reading and studying of His word!

I want to say right up front that I have avoided choosing this book earlier because of the first chapter. I am not a theologian and the best theologians in the world can debate this chapter and "prove" their understanding of it over and over again and never agree, so what hope do we have.  Many of you will read this and wonder what on earth am I even speaking of, because you KNOW exactly what it is saying.  Others can read this and it shake the foundation of their faith.  So it terrifies me.  However, as I prayed this I was reminded of something my friend Henry said, (for those who don't know him Henry is a called pastor with a brilliant mind) "the scripture is to be understandable to even a ten year old child."  What is beautiful about scripture is that it can challenge the best minds in the world and be so simple and clear to the simplest minded person.  So as a class let's study, no FEAST on His word, and let it transform us at the cellular level, trusting that He will reveal Himself and that because of the Holy Spirit we will KNOW and UNDERSTAND ALL that he desires for us!

Ephesians 1 New International Version (NIV)

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

To God’s holy people in Ephesus,[a] the faithful in Christ Jesus:

2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Praise for Spiritual Blessings in Christ

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

We are going to spend the entire class on these 4 verses...

Verses 1-2

Don't brush over these as just the hello! 

Who is he writing too and how does he describe them?

Would you feel comfortable with someone writing to us here at UCSDA and saying , "To God's holy people at UCSDA Church, the faithful..."

How does that sit with you?

But that isn't the end of the sentence.  How does it end?

"in Christ Jesus."

Do these three words change it for you?

What does he say next?

Recently I completely had a laps of memory and forgot a very important meeting.  It was not only a meeting of significance but it was with someone I love dearly.  I so blanked on it that when I realized I had forgotten,  I was really disturbed.  So I sent a text of apology to my dear friend.  The text that came back was in essence saying, "Grace and peace to you from God." 

Do we approach our relationships with that?

Grace and peace....

Is there someone in your life you need to say this to? 

I can't begin to express to you what her text did for me that day.  I was reeling with all kinds of thoughts and emotions at my huge blunder, I was wondering what was physically wrong with me that I could forget something that important, I knew I had let her down and hurt her, and she responded with, "grace and peace to you from God."  

How would we navigate life differently if when faced with our failures we hear, "grace and peace to you from God."  

How would we treat each other differently if when faced with people miss treating we say to them, "grace and peace to you from God."

Verses 3-4

Praise be to....

I have been amazed this week at the idea of us...ME praising God. REALLY? How can I even do that?

The privilege is awesome!

I heard someone once say that we are all created to praise and worship, the question is who are we going to praise and worship?

"...who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ."

....every spiritual blessing in Christ...

Do you hear that?

How many blessings?

Which blessing?

"...For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight..."

Now this sentence takes us into the section that can get interesting.  I want us to just focus for a moment on this phrase.  We will save the rest for later.

For he chose us...

Chose us...

Just sit with that.

Last night Chris and I were sharing part of our love story, and as I was falling asleep I kept thinking about how thankful I was that he chose me.  He chose me.  Now I want to share something with you and please understand this is not in a self deprecating way.... but, Chris a couple girl friends before me dated a girl who later won the Miss Tennessee pageant which sent her to the Miss America pageant.... but he chose me?

Now let's be clear, he chose me, and that is amazing, but I still had to make a decision to choose him right? 

Wait maybe we are getting ahead of ourselves....

He chose me!

God has chosen you!

If you are in class I will share the story of our son coming to be, but it is just too long to write out here... (shameless pug for coming to class! LOL)

We need to move on.  Because it doesn't just say He chose us.  It says says what?

Chose us IN HIM.... before the creation of the world.... TO BE HOLY and BLAMELESS....

But wait it doesn't end there.....

IN HIS SIGHT!


I want you to stop for a moment and look at this from a different angle.  What I see here is that this verse, and much of what we are going to look at next week has more to do with HIM than us.

Do you see that.

What is he saying here isn't really about us as much as about HIM!

He chose us...
Before he even created us...
to be holy... in
HIM

What it says here is that before he created this world, he chose the Salvation story!

He chose to lay it all down for you!

He chose you in HIM
He chose for you to be blameless in HIS sight

Isn't that the salvation story?


Sometimes... maybe most of the time... we make scripture about us when it is ALL about HIM!

Do you see that here. 

We focus on the being chosen, blameless and holy, when the focus is, that it is all about what HE has done.  HE Chose, IN HIM, in HIS SIGHT. 

As we digest this book I want us to continue to look at what this is all saying about HIM. 

Let's spend the next few weeks focusing on....

KNOW LOVE.